Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Darfur Is No Genocide Says UN

Darfur Is No Genocide Says UN

One of the best essayists today is Mark Steyn, whose insights and observations never fail to make one laugh as he skewers the pompous and powerful. And we have to laugh, or we will never stop crying. Just today a government report finds that gun laws have no effect on crime, but goes on to conclude that its conclusions are no reason to change anything. I expect that Steyn will have something to say about that presently, but today's piece is about the U.N. Oil for Food Scandal. While he covers that travesty with a completeness and brevity at the same time, what really got me going was a little bon mot at the end, about something entirely different. he sums up the transnational mindset - and standard operating procedure - perfectly

If Paul Volcker's preliminary report on Oil-for-Food dealt with the organisation's unofficial interests, the UN's other report of the week accurately captured their blithe insouciance to their official one. As you may have noticed, the good people of Darfur have been fortunate enough not to attract the attention of the arrogant cowboy unilateralist Bush and have instead fallen under the care of the Polly Toynbee-Clare Short-approved multilateral compassion set. So, after months of expressing deep concern, grave concern, deep concern over the graves and deep grave concern over whether the graves were deep enough, Kofi Annan managed to persuade the UN to set up a committee to look into what's going on in Darfur. They've just reported back that it's not genocide.

That's great news, isn't it? For as yet another Annan-appointed UN committee boldly declared in December: "Genocide anywhere is a threat to the security of all and should never be tolerated." So thank goodness this isn't genocide. Instead, it's just 70,000 corpses who all happen to be from the same ethnic group – which means the UN can go on tolerating it until everyone's dead, and Polly and Clare don't have to worry their pretty little heads about it.

Isn't that the truth? Great stuff. Too bad that the black Africans in Darfur can not laugh, and may even be fresh out of tears. But if we can not lampoon those who could make a difference to them, but refuse to, nothing will ever change.